I Want to Take Ten

Sakura gripped the bell tightly and took a step forward.

"Sasuke, I know you think we need these two bells more."

"But if you aren't here, what is the point of us becoming ninjas?"

She took a deep breath, raised her head, and looked straight into Sasuke's eyes.

"The three of us have been training out there for three years. If one of us is eliminated, then even if the remaining two pass, it doesn't count as passing."

Naruto raised his right hand and held the bell out in front of Sasuke.

"Sasuke, the Hokage is someone who protects the village and protects their comrades."

"If I can't even manage to advance with you, then what kind of Hokage would I be!"

His voice echoed across the training ground.

"If you aren't going to be a ninja, then I won't be one either."

"If you go find Jiraiya, I'm following you. If you stay in the village, I'll block your front door every single day. Wherever you go, I go."

"Alright, alright." Kakashi clapped his hands, drawing the attention of the three back to himself.

"Although the process was almost entirely wrong."

He crinkled his exposed right eye.

"The result was correct."

Naruto, still maintaining his pose of pointing at Sasuke, froze with his finger in mid-air and looked at Kakashi in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" Kakashi held up three fingers, "all three of you pass."

Sakura was stunned.

She looked down at the bell in her hand, then back at Kakashi.

Naruto's eyebrows knitted together, and he slowly pulled his finger back, scratching his temple vigorously.

"But there are only two bells? And Sasuke, he..."

"The bell test was never about eliminating anyone." Kakashi lowered his hand, his tone turning serious.

"In ninja missions, you will sometimes encounter situations where you have to choose between the rules and your comrades. If you choose the rules then, you are a good ninja who completes the mission."

He paused.

"But if you choose the rules and abandon your comrades."

Kakashi's exposed right eye looked at Sasuke, then at Naruto and Sakura.

"Then you are the scum of the earth."

"What the, so Kakashi isn't a bad guy after all."

Naruto's mouth hung open, the anxiety and anger on his face fading away layer by layer, replaced by a more pure excitement.

He spun around abruptly and grabbed Sasuke by the shoulders.

"Sasuke! Did you hear that! We all passed!"

Sasuke was shaken backward and reached out to swat Naruto's hands away.

"I heard."

"Then why aren't you happy at all! Do you have any idea how much you scared me just now!"

"What was there to be scared of? I was stating a fact."

"What fact! You were just trying to scare us on purpose!"

Naruto poked Sasuke's shoulder with his finger, adding a sentence with every poke.

"You just wanted to see how we would react, right! You're so smart, you must have known all along that Kakashi would let us pass!"

The corner of Sasuke's mouth twitched.

"I didn't know. I just really felt that you two needed these bells more than I did."

Naruto's poking motion stopped abruptly.

Sakura covered her mouth, her shoulders trembling, and tears finally spilled over.

"Sasuke... how did I never notice you were so awkward before?" Sakura wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

Naruto let out a huff through his nose, crossed his arms behind his head, and turned his face away.

"Exactly, exactly. If you were worried about us, just say so. You went through all that trouble and almost scared the life out of me."

Sasuke shoved his hands back into his pockets, his gaze fixed on the sky where a few clouds were drifting by.

"I was merely stating a fact."

"Yeah, yeah, stating a fact." Naruto drawled, then suddenly turned his head, flashing a grin that revealed all his white teeth.

"Anyway, we all passed!"

White Dog crouched at Sasuke's feet, his tail thumping against the ground twice.

"The short blondie cried, didn't he?"

"Who cried! That was sweat! Sweat from the fight just now!"

Black Dog walked over to Naruto's side and remarked, "Hmm, still as stubborn as ever."

"Black! What are you saying, you guy!"

Escaping Rabbit lay at Kakashi's feet, looking up at him.

"Teacher, I want a bell too."

Kakashi looked at Escaping Rabbit in confusion.

"Hm? You're a summoning animal; you don't need a bell to become a genin."

"Oh." Escaping Rabbit blinked. "Then I'm actually pretty impressive."

"...In a way, you certainly are." Kakashi was so choked up by this statement he didn't know what to say.

"Alright, since you've all passed." Kakashi straightened his forehead protector, turned around, and set off.

"We're heading to the Hokage Building to report and pick up a mission. We still have half a day, so get a feel for the life of a ninja."

Naruto shoved the bell into his pocket and sprinted to catch up.

"Pick up a mission! It must be a really cool one, right! Like rescuing a princess of a neighboring country from a castle! Or defeating some super dangerous rogue ninja!"

"No. Freshly graduated genin can only take D-rank missions, like pulling weeds or finding cats."

"Wha—at—!"

Naruto's miserable wail echoed over the training ground.

The corridors of the Hokage Building were filled with the faint scent of ink and aged wood.

Sunlight, sliced into square patches by the sunshades hanging outside the corridor windows, landed right on Kakashi's hand as he pushed open the door to the Hokage's office.

"Third Hokage, reporting the results of Team 7's exercise."

Anko Mitarashi was standing in front of the desk, holding half a skewer of Three-Color Dango, reporting some situation to Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Hearing the door open, she turned her head out of habit, then froze mid-chew, her eyes widening sharply.

"Oh! Isn't this Sasuke!"

Anko set the remaining half of the dango on the Third Hokage's desk and crossed the distance to Sasuke in two strides.

She bent down, pinched Sasuke's cheeks with both hands, and pulled outward.

"You've grown so tall! Let Teacher take a look—all the baby fat from when you were little is gone, and that was so cute! You've been training way too hard, haven't you?"

Sasuke's face was pulled into an irregular shape.

He raised his hand and slapped Anko's palms away, rubbing his reddened cheeks.

"Could you not act like you're my older sister, Teacher Mitarashi?"

"What's that supposed to mean! Don't I count as your sister?" Anko put her hands on her hips, her grin widening.

"Who brought you dango when you were little? Who practiced shurikenjutsu with you?"

"Those were just transactions."

Anko reached out and ruffled Sasuke's hair, leaving it a mess.

"You're just too awkward. I think you actually like your teacher a lot!"

Naruto pointed at Anko's hand on Sasuke's head, his eyes wide.

"Sasuke! Why does Teacher Anko get to touch you?"

"When I tried to ruffle your hair during our spar last time, you almost stabbed my hand through with a kunai."

"That's because your hands were dirty." Sasuke pulled Anko's hand off his head and walked up to the Third Hokage's desk.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took his pipe from his mouth and tapped it twice against the edge of the ashtray, his aged skin folding into layers of wrinkles as he smiled.

He looked at the three standing in a row before him and nodded.

"You all passed. Kakashi's failure rate is quite famous in Konoha."

"The Hokage knows the result?" Kakashi leaned against the doorframe, his tone lazy. "I was planning to report the process."

"I knew even without a report." Hiruzen put the pipe back into his mouth, the smoke drifting from his lips and blurring the wrinkles on his face.

"I've always felt that these three could pass together."

Sakura gripped the bell in her hands, her eyes growing warm at these words.

Naruto threw his arms around Sasuke and Sakura's shoulders, flashing a grin of white teeth as he gave the Third Hokage a thumbs-up.

"That goes without saying! The three of us are the strongest!"

Sasuke's shoulder was gripped painfully tight by Naruto. He turned his head to look at Naruto's face, which was inches away, and after a moment of hesitation, he didn't pull away.

"Ahem." Hiruzen gave a light cough, pushed the mission scrolls on the desk toward the clan emblems, and withdrew his gaze from the three of them.

"Everyone, relax. From today on, you are independent ninjas, so there is no need to be so tense. Let's start with the missions, Anko."

"Oh! Looking for missions, right!" Anko grabbed a stack of scrolls from a wooden rack beside the desk of the Third Hokage and dumped them onto the surface with a clatter.

The wax seals on the scrolls were light yellow, indicating they were all entry-level.

She casually tore open the one on top and glanced at the contents.

"Hmm—this one is good!"

"The client is a farmer named Lewis. He says that a few farmers have arrived at a farm called Stardew Valley,"

"But those guys don't tend to the farm; they either go mining or fishing. The grass on the farm has grown taller than him, and he needs a ninja to help clear the weeds."

The smile on Naruto's face collapsed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Weeding?"

"Next." Anko tore open another scroll.

"The client is a shipwright named Franky."

"He says his friend Luffy ran the ship aground near a deserted island, leaving a huge hole in the hull. He needs a ninja to help salvage repair materials."

"Repairing ships?!" The corners of Naruto's mouth drooped down to his chin.

"Next, the client is named Two Hundred Fifty-Six, a blacksmith who needs someone to help clear slimes out of his smithy."

"Slimes are again—"

Before Naruto could finish asking, Anko tore open four or five more scrolls and lined them up on the desk.

"Catching fish thieves by the river, helping an old lady find a lost cat, cleaning the sewers..."

What kind of garbage is this?

Naruto slammed his hands onto the desk: "Only having missions like these is way too trashy!"

He pointed at the pile of light-yellow-sealed scrolls, his face nearly touching Anko's.

"I want those kinds of awesome missions! The kind where you go whoosh out of the village! Bang! You knock a rogue ninja flying! And then bam, you get cheered on by the whole village under the sunset!"

"The dreams of a ninja from a storybook." Hiruzen rested his pipe on the edge of the ashtray and crossed his hands beneath his chin.

"However, Naruto, D-rank missions are just like this. There are many trivial matters in the village that need to be handled every day, and someone has to do them."

"Don't be impatient, take it slow. Once you've done enough D-ranks, you'll get to the others."

Sasuke kept his eyes fixed on Hiruzen, waiting for the old man to finish speaking before he opened his mouth.

"Unfortunately."

Hiruzen raised his eyelids.

"I also want to do high-level missions sooner." Sasuke pulled his hands out of his pockets.

"Can I take more D-ranks?"

The fingers Hiruzen used to hold his pipe paused in mid-air.

He tilted his head to look at the pile of scrolls on the desk, then back at Sasuke's expressionless face, his brows knitting slightly.

"Theoretically, yes. But since you just graduated, at most one per day—"

"I want to take ten."

The smoke nearly slipped from the corner of Hiruzen's mouth. Anko put the scroll in her hand back, leaned her body forward with her hands braced on the desk, and looked Sasuke up and down with a mischievous, curved-eye smile.

"Oh my, oh my, Sasuke, are you sure? Ten D-ranks? Even if each one takes half a day, that'll take you several days. If you don't complete them well, it'll really hurt the village's reputation."

Anko pulled a new dango from a paper bag on the desk, bit one off, and added vaguely.

"Although I know you're very strong, D-rank missions aren't difficult, but they are very time-consuming, you know."

"I have Escaping Rabbit."

Anko stopped chewing her dango.

"Oh? Is that so."

Sasuke took the stack of scrolls from Anko's hand.

Ten light-yellow-sealed D-rank missions, stacked together, were only two fingers thick.

"Escaping Rabbit."

The shadow beneath his feet surged, and a white rabbit hopped out of the black mud, shaking its ears.

"Two hundred shadow clones, divided into ten groups of twenty, each going to one of the ten mission locations."

Sasuke opened the scrolls one by one, letting Escaping Rabbit see the addresses and mission details clearly.

"Did you memorize them all?"

Escaping Rabbit blinked: "Memorized. If there aren't enough clones, can I split more?"

"Enough." Sasuke rolled up the scrolls and handed them to Anko beside him. "Go."

Escaping Rabbit bounced on the spot, and twenty white rabbits simultaneously split off from its body. Then forty, then eighty.

Rabbits surged out from the doorway of the Hokage office, with several leaping directly off the windowsill.

Anko stared blankly at the massive swarm of rabbits.

"You... just finished the mission like that?"

"Yes. Each group of clones has a serial number, and they will bring back the receipts once the mission is complete. If you need confirmation, you can send some Chunin to re-examine the sites."

Hiruzen took his pipe out of his mouth, looked at the pile of scrolls on the desk, then at the few rabbits jumping out the window, his wrinkles twitching.

In the end, he put the pipe back in his mouth and exhaled a long trail of smoke.

"Very efficient, Sasuke. However, this means you three have nothing to do for the next two days."

"Nothing to do is perfect!" Naruto grabbed Sasuke by the sleeve. "Let's go eat ramen! To celebrate the formation of Team 7!"

"Naruto, the mission hasn't—" Sakura started to speak, but was dragged away by Naruto.

Kakashi watched Sasuke and Sakura being pulled away by Naruto and waved his hand.

"Well, I'll be heading off with them, then. I won't disturb you any further."

He then followed the three of them out of the office.

The door clicked shut.

The office fell silent. Anko bit off the last of the dango on her skewer, tossed the bamboo stick into a paper bag, and leaned her hands against the edge of the desk.

"Lord Hokage, aside from the recent unusual movements in the Land of Rain, there is one more thing I need to report."

"Speak."

"It's about the bridge builder from the Land of Waves, an old man named Tazuna."

"The Land of Waves." Hiruzen pondered for a moment. "Is the bridge builder constructing a bridge to connect to the mainland?"

Anko's tone shifted from professional to increasingly casual.

"Ever since he arrived in Konoha, he's been playing the fool to get free food and drinks. I think there's something wrong with him."

Hiruzen's brows furrowed slightly.

"So you think he's feigning misery?"

"Definitely feigning."

Hiruzen was silent for a while.

He picked up his pipe from the edge of the ashtray and twirled it half a turn between his fingers.

"Send two Anbu toward the Land of Waves to investigate."

He exhaled a puff of smoke.

"By the way, Anko, Danzo has been suspiciously quiet lately. Keep an eye on him when you have the time."

"Understood."